


And I'll Love the World Like I Should

by charlie_c



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Ending, Canon Rewrite, Destroy Ending, Gen, Indoctrination Theory, Mass Effect 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 06:18:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9479141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlie_c/pseuds/charlie_c
Summary: Revision of the final moments of Mass Effect 3 to satisfy the ending I would have wanted for my own character.Playing VERY FAST AND LOOSE with canon. Equal parts actual gameplay, IT headcanons, and me straight up adding/removing/altering entire sections for cohesion.





	

Her hand found the gun before her mind even fully understood what had happened. There was light, and there was agony, and there was fire. So much fire. But even as she opened her eyes, blinked dust and blood out of her vision as she tried--failed, feebly, then tried again--to get herself upright, she struggled to pull fractured moments together into a coherent thought.

_Harbinger._

Ultimately that was the only memory that mattered. Their final push had been stopped. The Reapers had intervened and no one had made it to the conduit. They had failed.

Yet here was Constance Shepard. Still standing, if only barely. Still breathing, still conscious, at least for now. And so long as she could still hold a gun, the fight wasn't over.

There was no time to take stock of her injuries, and there would be no good news there anyway, she knew. Her shields were thoroughly spent, her armor warped and twisted, blackened to little more than charcoal in places. Her left arm, where the gauntlet and sleeve had been entirely stripped away to leave bare and tortured flesh, responded only reluctantly every time she tried to move it. But her legs worked--more or less--and when she was certain they would hold her, she took a step forward. Her strength held out but even the simple movement sent pain arcing through every part of her. She pressed her empty hand to her side, where the worst of it seemed to be concentrated, and grit her teeth as another step sent warm blood oozing through her fingers. Still, she walked.

The conduit shone before her, tapering as it stretched up and disappeared into the atmosphere. As far as she could tell, it now stood unguarded. The Reapers were getting overconfident, it seemed, and it was making them sloppy. The sounds of combat still echoed around her, but distant now, muted under the crackling of fire and her own footsteps across gravel and shrapnel. She stepped over corpses and the ruined scraps of walls and vehicles, never letting her eyes drift from her target even as shadows danced and flickered at the sides of her vision, threatening to cloud it completely as her consciousness wavered precariously. She could afford no distractions now. Three shots each for the husks that came scrambling toward her out of the rubble, four for the marauder. On a better day she might have taken each with one bullet, but the pistol seemed impossibly heavy in her hand and her aim faltered with the kickback each time she pulled the trigger.

The conduit’s energy vibrated through the air around her, and as she stepped up to it she paused for a brief moment to examine the gun she had only half-consciously claimed. An M-6 Carnifex, apparently still functional despite the deep gouge in the casing along one side. Appropriate, she thought. Anderson had handed her its precursor, the Predator, back in Vancouver, when this had all just begun. She wondered idly how many shots she had left, and how many she would need, as the conduit pulled at her with an adamant force and she was ripped away from the surface of London.

She came down hard, tumbling out of the conduit and several feet across the ground. For some indeterminate time she just stayed there, dazed and with a dull, untargeted feeling of resentment.

“ _Shepard?_ ”

She opened her eyes, though it barely made a difference. In that instant there was nothing but red-tinted darkness and the sound of dripping water around her. She choked on the thick smell of death as soon as she tried to breathe, coughed blood onto the ground beneath her as she laboriously pushed herself up off of it. Every muscle and every joint in her body told her to stop, to rest, but she pawed at the ground until she found the Carnifex again--willed herself not to dwell on what else her hand had brushed along the way--and hauled herself to her feet.

Naturally, if traveling through a conduit in the mako two years ago had been incredibly hazardous, then stepping into one completely unprotected might as well have been a suicide attempt.

“ _Shepard, can you hear me?_ ”

“Anderson..?” Constance peered into the darkness. “Where are you?” Her eyes began to adjust to the low light, and her stomach turned. The admiral was nowhere to be seen, but no, of course not. Her mind was working slowly but she finally realized his voice was right in her ear, crackling through her headset. Surrounding her there were only corpses, heaped uncaringly across her path and along the walls. A keeper scuttled through the carnage, long thin legs sometimes clicking against the metal floor, sometimes muffled by flesh and ragged clothing. Constance grimaced, raising her gun out of instinctive disgust more than anything, but the keeper paid her no mind.

“ _I followed you up,_ ” Anderson was saying. "B _ut we didn't come out in the same place… at least I don't think we did._ ” Did that make sense..? Constance had seen no sign of him on her crawl to the conduit, but she was beyond questioning circumstances now. She was just grateful for the familiar voice. " _What's your surrounding look like?_ ”

“It's a graveyard,” Constance replied, still eyeing the keeper dubiously as she picked her way around the bodies, following what seemed to be the only path available. “If you were near me you'd know.” Something about the scene seemed off. As Constance stared down at the mangled body of a man stretched out before her, his eyes gazing blindly back, it dawned on her. “Anderson. All of these bodies are human.” She looked up, scanning the network of pipes running the length of the ceiling above her. What she had assumed to be water dripping from the seams, on closer inspection, seemed like something thicker, darker. “They're _processing_ them..?”

“ _It does remind me of your description of the collector base,_ ” Anderson offered. Then after a brief pause, “ _you think they're making a Reaper in here?_ ”

“On the Citadel..?” Constance stepped over the body and continued down the hallway. “Is that even possible?” Something was very wrong, but she doubted there were answers for her in the tunnel, and whatever the Reapers were doing, it didn't change her goal. “I guess it makes sense,” she admitted. “Round them up on Earth, you'd have to send them _somewhere_.”

Anderson swore under his breath. “ _Alright. I'm going to keep moving. The sooner we send these bastards back to hell the better._ ”

“Don't… get too far ahead.” Constance resented the sudden vulnerability in her own voice. She had been ready to do this alone, if it came down to it, but if there was a chance she wouldn't have to… She urged her own flagging body onward. When the silence quickly became too heavy around her, she cleared her throat. “Hey Anderson.”

“ _Yeah?_ ”

“When this is finally over… you think you could put in a good word for me with the brass? Think I've finally earned those captain’s stripes, at the very least.”

Anderson chuckled softly, but there was a heaviness to it, an underlying note of sadness. “ _Sure Commander, I'll see what I can do._ ”

Finally the oppressive darkness of the tunnel gave way to a high doorway, which slid smoothly open at her approach. The transition was jarring, and she hesitated on the threshold as her eyes adjusted to the bright light bouncing off the shining metal of the passageway. She stepped forward, and to either side of the narrow pathway still leading her pointedly forward, a deep chasm stretched on and out of sight. Huge heavy metal plates glided up and down past each other below her, adjustments seemingly controlled by an unseen force for purposes beyond her comprehension.

“ _Where do you think we are, anyway?_ ” Anderson asked, just as Constance had been about to voice the same thought.

“Yeah, this isn't any part of the Citadel I've ever seen. But…” she watched the shifting plates as she passed them, recognition blooming somewhere in the back of her mind. “I’ve… I have seen this before.”

“ _What do you mean? I thought you just said-_ ”

“Not here.” She screwed her eyes shut, willing her exhausted memory backward through the last year. Traces of Liara’s face, her voice, an ancient behemoth of a ship wrapped in a raging storm. “Somewhere _very_ far away.” It didn’t make sense, did it?

“ _Shepard, I see something. A control panel, maybe?_ ” Constance peered down the path ahead of her, toward a high ramp and what looked to be another exit or entrance. Did she hear movement beyond the hum and the metallic scrape of the ship around her? Did she hear the voice from the chamber ahead, or was it still only in her ear? “ _I’m just going to go on ahead to check-_ ” Constance winced as the end of his comment twisted into sharp static.

“Anderson?” The only answer she received was dead air. She tightened her grip on the Carnifex, ascended the ramp carefully, and braced herself for whatever came next.

For a fraction of a moment her dulled senses told her she was back in the Illusive Man’s hideout. The scene was familiar, a broad open platform broken up by nothing but a single console, the high uninterrupted window giving the illusion of stepping right out into the void of space. But this was a smaller platform, a simpler console, and instead of the deep orange aura of Anadius, the view was only a solid cover of glowing, interconnected panels. The inner workings of the Citadel, Constance recalled, an even more distant memory firing off.

Wrong. It was _wrong._ Where was she? Where was the Tower, the Council chambers? Constance’s immediate impression told her she stood at the end of the line, and so this must be the point where she could complete her mission. But every instinct was crying out that something was amiss. She had done this before--the mad dash through the conduit, open the arms and save the day. It _should_ be familiar, but not like this. _This_ made no sense. She felt like she was walking a path she had already traveled, compressed and abbreviated and skewed. It was all perfectly familiar and it was all wrong.

“Anderson?” He was standing at the console, but he was so perfectly still and silent that her eyes had slipped right over him at first. “ _Admiral._ How did you get to this room?” He made no move, offered no response. Constance took a step forward, bristling with unease. She spoke cautiously, deliberately. “You said you came in behind me. How did you get here first? There’s only one entrance.”

Anderson turned toward her, one awkwardly halting step at a time. His movement was unnatural, his expression slack, and with a sudden stab of paranoia Constance raised her gun, leveled it with his chest. Then just as immediately she second guessed that impulse, but when she tried to step back and drop the weapon to her side, nothing happened. Inexplicably, her body ceased to respond to her own impulses.

“I underestimated you, Shepard.” The voice came from behind her, but by now she hardly had to see him to know him. The sudden wave of mingled hatred and confusion made her skin crawl and her head spin. The Illusive Man stepped around her and into view, nearly unrecognizable under the deep gouges that reached up his neck and face, the mottled black and glowing blue of Reaper tech slowly devouring him from the inside. In that instant Constance wanted nothing more than to swing the Carnifex around and cut him down before he could say another word, but it didn't seem to matter how badly she wanted it. The gun stayed stubbornly trained on Anderson instead.

“I suppose you followed me through the conduit too,” she growled through gritted teeth, her voice dripping with contempt. She paused to study his degraded face, even as her vision swam and darkness pressed in at the edges of her consciousness again, before she shook her head. “Look at you… You proud of yourself, _boss?_ Proud of what you've accomplished?”

“I don't expect you to understand what I've _accomplished,_ Commander,” he replied, in that level, condescending tone she had grown to resent so deeply. He prowled across the platform at an easy pace as he continued, “but you're wasting your time by resisting. This war has always been about control, that is our means to survival. Control of the Reapers…” he stopped, turned to face her, waving his hand in a demonstrative gesture between her and Anderson. “Control of _you,_ if necessary.”

Anderson made a choked sound beside him, seemed to strain desperately to get out the first words Constance had heard him speak in person. “You're delusional... Th- they’re… controlling _you…_ ”

“It’s a neat trick,” Constance interjected, “but I’m not impressed. You think this means you can make the entire Reaper army dance..? That’s not how it _works._ ”

This isn’t how it works. The words settled in her mind like heavy sediment. The Reapers controlled through doubt, fear, they weren’t puppet masters. They persuaded and intimidated, bred paranoia and fractured reality.

That seemed important, somehow, but the reason kept slipping away from her.

The Illusive Man smiled knowingly. “Have a little faith.” He began to pace again, studying their surroundings as if they were suddenly of great interest to him. “Frankly I had higher hopes for you. The simple-minded are always the most frightened of progress. You know, there were those who wanted to destroy the mass relays, when we first discovered them. They were afraid--of what we’d find, of what would find us.”

“The relays weren’t… trying to kill us…”

The Illusive Man just laughed. “But we didn’t know that then. All we knew was that they were incomprehensible, potentially dangerous. But _look_ what humanity has accomplished since then, because we _dared_ to try.” He circled around behind Anderson’s paralyzed form, and came to stand before Constance again. “The Reapers are our next step toward the future. The key to a new singularity. Why would you deny that to your own kind?”

“I- … I don’t...” Constance grasped ineffectively for another rebuttal, another denial of his argument, but she was struggling more and more to push her mind past the aching in her own muscles, the bright white pain blossoming at the base of her skull and the oily, snaking shadows that encroached on every side. Her legs wanted desperately to give out under her, and she would have let them if she’d had that power.

“ _Bullshit,"_  came Anderson’s voice as the room lost focus around her. “The Reapers don’t offer us anything, we destroy them or they destroy us.”

“Then we’d be wasting an incredible opportunity,” the Illusive Man said beside her.

“This… this power is bigger than any of us.” Constance squinted down at the ground, pressing her empty hand to her temple as she fumbled with her own thoughts. “What if you can’t… you wouldn’t know what to do with it…”

The Illusive Man continued his circuit through the space, and the simple effort of tracking his movement was becoming exhausting. “You're wrong. I've been preparing for this my entire life. I know it will work.”

“You can't possibly know that.”

“Then what, Commander? If you don’t believe in me, then who? Would _you_ control the Reapers?”

Would she? Constance said nothing but she eyed him, suddenly uncertain. _Could_ she, if it came to that? If it meant stopping _him_ from trying?

“No.” Again Anderson’s voice cut through the encroaching haze. “This isn't power any one person could have. _Should_ have.”

“I disagree.” Under the Illusive Man’s level and peaceful tone, a note of frustration was beginning to surface. He was becoming impatient. Constance wondered why he was so determined to win them to his side, why he didn't just do what he'd come to do. “We’ve come this far, haven’t we proven ourselves? We uncovered the key, we united the galaxy, _we_ facilitated the Crucible. If we _can_ control them, why shouldn’t we?”

“We’re... not ready…” Constance barely felt like she was arguing anymore. Some small, weak part of her was just waiting to be convinced.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s now or never, Commander. _This_ is how humanity evolves.”

“ _No._ ” She thought surely she had been the one to say it this time, but still it was Anderson who continued, “the cost is too high. There’s always another way.”

The frustration in the Illusive Man’s voice sharpened into a violent edge as he spat back, “and when has a high cost ever mattered to you? _You’re_ the one they send when they want results and don’t want to question how you get them. You're supposed to make the difficult calls, they expect _you_ to decide when the benefits outweigh the costs! If they want to place that burden on you, why shouldn’t you use it?” Constance narrowed her eyes, blinking up at him through the smothering shadows. Anderson had been the one to refuse him, but he was still speaking to her. He closed the distance between them in several quick strides, his bright eyes growing manic. “And just _think_ of the benefits. Think of what you could _do_ if you simply _will_ it,” he hissed. As if in answer Constance felt her finger tighten on the Carnifex’s trigger, and a gunshot rang out through the room as Anderson staggered backward. Blood welled and spilled from the wound at the same time she felt a burning spasm up her own side.

In that moment, understanding dawned on her through the darkness.

The haze evaporated and everything stood in clear pinpoint detail around her, somehow more surreal now in its hyper-reality. She took one slow, shaking breath, and in the heavy silence after the gunshot she could hear blood dripping onto the floor. “Fine,” she said, her lips twisting into a ghastly humorless grin. “If you’re so sure this is how it ends, then do it. The console is right there, open the arms and take control.” The Illusive Man faltered, suspicion creeping into his eyes. “This is your _moment,_  elevate the human race.”

His passion dissolved into defensive uncertainty. “It will work,” he insisted. “I’ve dedicated everything to this, I’ve sacrificed everything for the sake of humanity. I know it will work.”

“Then _do it._ Prove me wrong, prove the Reapers will serve us.”

“I… I will. They will.” The Illusive Man made no move, toward the console or anyone else.

“You can’t, can you?” Anderson pressed, with a note of grim satisfaction. “They’re in control, you’re already indoctrinated.”

“No- _No!_ _I’m_ in control!”

“No…” Constance persisted. “I don’t know when, but you lost control a long time ago. The Reapers pulled your heroism right out from under you and you never even noticed.”

“That’s not true- I took what I needed from _them!_ Everything I did I did for the future! To _save_ us!” The brief spell was broken, and the Illusive Man began to pace again in his agitation.

“You were _supposed_ to save everyone, you were supposed to protect them, but you’ve _failed._ ”

“You’re _wrong!!_ ” The Illusive Man shoved Anderson aside, advancing on Constance with an almost animal snarl.

She pulled the trigger again and he toppled backward, silent and unmoving.

Whatever force had held them dissolved. Constance staggered and fell to her knees as Anderson simply crumpled to the ground. It took an immense mustering of willpower for Constance to move again, to climb to her feet. Her lone, labored breaths and unsteady footsteps seemed to echo in the stillness, as she lurched past the motionless bodies to either side of her until she could brace herself against the console. She stared down at the controls, reaching back years into the fog of her memories until she found the commands that would open the Citadel again. The wall of panels before her parted, ponderously, until the vast curve of her scorched homeworld stretched before her.

And just ahead, the Crucible. Whole, ready and waiting to dock. She breathed a sigh of relief.

Mission complete.

She heard the soft rustle of fabric as Anderson, apparently still determinedly clinging to life behind her, pushed himself into a sitting position. Constance stepped back, lowering herself gratefully to the ground beside him.

Anderson dipped his head toward her in acknowledgement. “Commander.” The formality was almost comical under the circumstances.

“We did it,” she answered, hardly daring to believe it even as the words left her lips.

Anderson nodded. He looked grave, lost in thought as he watched the scene unfold. “God…” he sighed at length. “Feels like years since I just... sat down.”

“Well Admiral, I think you’ve earned a rest.”

They lapsed into silence again, and when Constance glanced over Anderson’s gaze was distant and unfocused. Then unexpectedly, he said, “Shepard, you… you know it isn’t true, right..?”

The oddness of the question was enough to bring Constance sharply back into the moment. She turned toward him again, brow furrowed. “What?”

“You didn’t fail humanity. You did everything you could, more than anyone could have possibly expected of you. You fought harder than anyone. I’m… I'm proud of you.”

Constance smiled, albeit half-heartedly. All she said in response was, “sure…”

With that Anderson let out a weak, tired breath. His head lolled forward, and as he grew still, Constance thought that maybe he had the right idea. She let her eyes close, let the world go quiet around her.

And then- “ _Shepard? Commander, do you copy?_ ”

“Hackett?” She tried to blink her eyes back into focus again, but the room had gone soft somehow. It was not the same murk that had infected everything before, but the details of her surroundings seemed less certain, less confident. Was she alone?

“ _Oh, thank God. We’ve been trying to radio anyone from Hammer since we heard_ someone _made it through the conduit. When we saw the arms open we were sure whoever it was must still be alive._ ”

“And you didn’t try me first..?” Constance tried to laugh, but she didn’t manage much more than a dry cough. “Have a little faith, Admiral.”

“ _I’m sorry Commander, but something’s wrong._ ”

The last shred of mirth she had summoned vanished. Of course. “What do you need me to do?” Her body was lead as she leaned forward, tried to get her feet back under her one last time.

“ _I’m not sure, but nothing is happening. The Crucible’s not firing._ ”

She rose, staggered, hit the ground again.

“ _It’s got to be something on your end.”_

“I can’t…” She peered up at the control panel, giving up on standing in favor of simply dragging herself the remaining distance toward it. “Hackett I’m sorry, I… I don’t know how-…” The room tilted beneath her as she reached out to grasp the edge of the console, felt her blood-slick fingers slip off the cool metal as everything faded out into white.

“ _Commander..!"_

Anderson’s words echoed back to her in the emptiness.

_You didn’t fail humanity._

\--

This time when she opened her eyes, she made no effort to parse what she was seeing. There was no point, not when she was so far beyond trusting anything her senses told her anymore. The vast space ahead of her, the massive, incomprehensible machine and the column of glowing energy that emanated from it--it all might as well be real. The vision of Earth above her, swarmed and ravaged by Reapers, undoubtedly was, even if she could not comprehend where she was in order to be able to see it so close and so clearly. When she finally found the strength to rise to her feet once again, she chose not to question that either.

She recognized the boy. Or rather, she recognized his shape. The form that approached her now, walking calmly down the narrow path that led to the machine, was made of little more than light. She was at first reminded of the VI interfaces she knew well, though the small figure before her seemed to crackle with its own life and power.

“Are you finally tired of watching me argue with myself?” she asked. Then, when the figure offered no response, she tried again. “You got a name?”

The boy blinked. “Only the one you have given me. I am the Catalyst.”

“Sure,” Constance sighed, rubbing her eyes. “That tracks.” She gazed over the boy’s head to the thrumming machine, then beyond that to the dark silhouette of Earth. “It’s too late, isn’t it? To stop the Reapers?”

“You are very close,” the boy said, turning to follow her gaze. “But I control the Reapers. They are my solution, and I would not have them decimated without reason.”

“Your ‘solution?’” She glared down at the boy’s figure, as it began to move back toward the machine. “To what? To _life?_ ”

The boy only paused for a moment to look back at her before continuing on its way. “To chaos.”

Against her better judgement, Constance fell into step behind it. “I’m gonna need more than that. The Reapers are slaughtering _everyone,_ how is that not chaos?”

“The Reapers seek to prevent chaos, and any conflict resulting is the fault of your own imperfections. Our creators recognized a pattern: left alone, organic life is doomed to destruction by the very synthetic life that it designs in its pursuit of perfection. Our creators wished to resolve this.” The boy stopped before the machine. A dark shadow passed over both of them as a Reaper crossed slowly overhead. “The Reapers harvest advanced civilizations before you have time to destroy yourselves, and we elevate your existence to a higher form.”

“A higher… But we don’t _want_ this,” Constance insisted. “You can’t punish us for something that hasn’t happened yet!”

The boy looked up at her, expressionless and unmoved. “It is not a punishment. It is the preservation of life in its purest form. But perhaps our solution is beyond your comprehension.”

“Then _explain it!_ ”

The boy blinked again. “You wish to talk.” Even in the figure’s flat tone, there seemed to be a trace of surprise.

Constance frowned, looking between the boy and the persistent destruction overhead as she tried to reel in her temper. “I’ve got time, right?” Again the boy gave no comment in the silence she offered. “There’s nothing else left. I just... want to understand what I couldn’t stop.”

So they talked. About the Reapers, the Leviathan, the Catalyst--its reasons, motives, and the perceived results of its actions. In the end, Constance remained disappointingly unconvinced. Whatever the Leviathan had believed they were resolving, they had completely, undeniably lost control of their own creation, and they had bred nothing but senseless and inescapable destruction.

In that sense, though, maybe they had been right all along. They created a synthetic life form to solve the problem of synthetic life outgrowing and turning on its creators. And the very life they created had outgrown and then turned on them. If the Reapers’ cycle was allowed to continue, would it not at least prevent a repeat of its own inception?

And yet… this cycle had already presented opportunities for those patterns to repeat, and they hadn’t. The geth rebelled against the quarians, but only in self defense. Left to their own devices, they chose nonviolent isolation, and the instant they were given the option of peaceful coexistence, they accepted it. Even EDI, herself born from Reaper technology and shown from day one that her own creators did not trust her, once freed sought nothing but understanding. She had vowed to lay down her own life for someone she had sworn to protect. Constance could think of few things more human than that.

As she mulled over these thoughts, the boy surprised her with an unsolicited comment. “You still wish to break the cycle.”

She looked down at it with a noncommittal shrug. “Does it matter?”

“It may be for the best.” This Constance found even more unbelievable, but the boy continued before she even had to press for answers. “This device, what you call the Crucible, has been in development over several cycles. It is crude, but combined with the Citadel in this way, it can release a tremendous amount of destructive power across the relay network. Its completion presents a challenge to our current solution, but the possibility of a new one.”

“What… what exactly are you telling me?”

“The Crucible has altered the variables, changed me on a fundamental level, and it has created… options.” The boy turned, directing Constance’s full attention to the machine. “However, I do not possess the ability to act on these options. That decision falls to you.”

“Why?”

The boy cast her a sidelong look. “Circumstance.” Feeling chided, she fell silent as it continued, “it is still within your power to destroy us, if you so desire.” It nodded to their right, toward what Constance could only assume was some sort of power conduit. “Your Crucible is intact, but imperfect. You have no command from here, but destroying the conduit will trigger the blast to destroy the Reapers. It will not discriminate, however. All synthetic life in the galaxy will be eliminated. Vital systems will be disrupted, and there will be significant losses. The survivors will be able to rebuild, but it will take time.”

Constance nodded, her features settling into a grim frown. “Is that the only way?”

“No. You could use the Crucible to take control of the Reapers.”

Constance blinked, following the boy’s gaze again as it turned to the machine’s opposite side. “So that really is possible,” she breathed. “How?”

“Give your identity to the Reaper intelligence. Your body will die, but your consciousness and memories will be preserved. In essence, you will replace me.”

“And the Reapers would follow my command? I could do whatever I wanted with them?” The boy nodded, and despite herself Constance realized she was considering the option seriously. Save humanity. Advance and protect humanity. The sheer magnitude of that power was difficult to conceive, and almost as difficult to resist. “But… Consciousness, memories… it's just objective data, right? What’s to stop me from _becoming_ you? From making the same choices, the same mistakes?”

“I cannot answer that,” the boy replied. “Only you can know whether you could be trusted. But there is another option. _Synthesis._ ” This time Constance remained silent, forcing the boy to continue unprompted. “If you add your energy to the Crucible, the resulting reaction would combine all synthetic and organic life into a new framework.”

Constance studied the boy, then the shifting column of energy. “How the hell is that supposed to work..?”

“The essence of what and who you are would be broken down and dispersed, allowing the Crucible’s energy to alter the matrix of all organic life using your makeup as a blueprint. They would finally reach the perfection they strive for, by being integrated fully with synthetic technology. In turn, synthetic life forms would finally gain the necessary understanding of organics to achieve peace." A momentary, almost imperceptible pause, then the boy added, "this is the ideal solution.”

“Ideal?” Its apparent preference caught Constance off guard. It had seemed markedly impartial up to that point. “You want to _rewrite_ the entire galaxy, and you think that's ideal?"

“Organics already strive for this balance themselves. This outcome is ultimately inevitable, now that the technology exists.”

Something about the concept wasn’t adding up. Introduce technology into the biology of living people without their knowledge… She tensed. “That’s how you get husks.”

“No.” The boy’s denial was unnervingly decisive. “We have tried a similar solution in the past, but it has always failed. The transition cannot be forced, and organics were not yet ready.”

“But you kept trying anyway.”

“We remained optimistic.”

Constance grimaced. “Your _ideal solution_ is grotesque. No one would ask for this.”

“Synthetics are already part of you, has that change not preserved and improved your life?”

“That’s different,” Constance insisted.

“Synthesis will end the cycle,” the boy continued, as if she had not spoken. “The Reapers will cease the harvest, and the knowledge of the past civilizations they have preserved will be disseminated to all. This is the final, necessary evolution of all life. It is ideal.”

There was a moment of silence after the boy’s explanation, as Constance slowly realized and comprehended exactly what she was being offered.

Then all she could do was laugh. She shook her head, looked over the entire machine and then moved a few paces away to take in the entirety of her surroundings.

Synthesis. Control. Elegant words, to be sure, and they very nearly made the idea palatable. Why destroy the Reapers, after all, when you could _become_ one?

When she returned to the boy’s side she simply asked, “is this a _joke?_ ”

The boy watched her, expression as unreadable as ever. “I do not understand.”

“No… Of course you don’t.” Constance ran a hand over her hair. “You’ve expended so much time and effort trying to convince me the Reapers are this unstoppable, terrifying force, and in the final hour you’re asking for… what? _Mercy?_ ” She stepped around the boy and away from the central column, her indignation quickly mounting. “Oh sure, sure, you had me for a minute there. Listen to me puzzle it out for you so you know exactly what wound to _twist_ the knife into.” She stopped to look up at the vision of Earth above them, and even now, when she was so ready to believe that not an ounce of this was real, the mere sight of its tortured surface sent a pang of guilt through her gut. “ _They trusted you and if you don't act, if you stop for even one second, you'll fail them all._ I made it easy, didn't I? Why bother breeding new fears or doubts when I've been feeding _myself_ that line for years. But you call these _options?”_ Her hand went instinctively to her belt as she climbed the path toward the power conduit. “You’ve taken _everything_ from me, and now you want me to just give you a pass? A _second chance?_ ” She had no memory of stowing the Carnifex, but she drew it confidently from its place all the same. “Why should the Reapers deserve that?” this question she turned to the boy directly, facing it down where it remained on the central path as she raised the pistol and leveled it with the conduit’s casing. “Why should they get _anything_ more than the same senseless destruction they’ve inflicted on everyone else?”

The boy faced her slowly. “You have been given the chance to ascend, to allow all life in the galaxy to evolve. You would choose instead to sacrifice every synthetic in the galaxy? For retribution?”

“I weighed the benefit against the cost. It’s what I do.”

Constance might have been fooling herself, but she thought she saw a flicker of an emotion in the boy’s face--uncertainty? Anger? “This choice cannot save you,” it said. She fired one shot into the casing, watched a crack shoot up its length. “Your own synthetics will guarantee your death.”

She spared the boy one last glance. “I’m already dead, and I have you to thank for that,” she stated. Then she emptied the rest of the clip into the conduit, and in the span of a breath the flames consumed her.

\--

When the pain and exhaustion came crashing back down over her she almost could have believed she was still burning. Her skull was alight with agony, like something that had sunk its claws deep into her had just been violently wrenched away, and at first she could do nothing more than curl in on herself and bite back a scream.

“ _Commander? Commander Shepard, are you alright?_ ” Hackett. Still on the line. He sounded worried.

Constance braced one hand against the floor, tentatively tried to push herself off of it and then spat out the bloody bile that rose up as her mind threatened to lose its grip on consciousness all over again. “Yeah,” she wheezed. “Yeah I'm-... I'm still here.” For now. Her mouth tasted like copper and every tiny movement sent black spots dancing across her vision.

Hackett breathed a sigh of relief over the comm. “ _For a few seconds there I was sure we'd lost you for good._ ”

A few seconds. Sure. “Sorry Admiral, just- g… just give me... a minute…”

“ _I don't know if we have a minute. The Reapers are pushing the advantage and we're taking heavy losses, we need results ASAP._ ”

“I know.” Then, though she no longer had it in her to be surprised by the dawning realization, she added, “I know what to do.” Just for once, she thought, with the last fading vestige of anger she was still clinging to, she would appreciate having ancient alien knowledge imparted to her without it also nearly killing her.

“ _Then do it, Commander. We're counting on you._ ”

“... I know.”

With some effort she managed to push herself upright enough to throw one arm over the console, then she locked her fingers under the first divot she could find in its design and hauled herself, painstakingly, back to her feet to braced her hands on either side of the low podium. She allowed herself one steadying breath before attempting anything else. Though she hardly trusted herself to look around then, to move her focus anywhere beyond the interface in front of her, she had the unshakable impression that something had changed. Her surroundings were dark, and echoed with the hollow ambience of a very large and very empty space. In the meager light cast by the control panel, she thought she could see several scattered bodies.

The Crucible’s connection to the system had completely overridden the interface-- _the Crucible has altered the variables…_ \--and Constance found herself studying controls that were unfamiliar yet gratefully straightforward. She had only two options: disable and disconnect the Crucible, or realign the Citadel with the nearest relay, redirect all systems to the Citadel Tower, and launch the final assault. Her fingers traveled over the console with gradually increasing confidence, awakening command lines that had lain dormant and forgotten for inconceivable millennia. “The Crucible was never the weapon,” she said, with clairvoyant certainty. Maybe now, at the end of everything, someone might believe her the first time, for whatever that was worth. “It's vital, but if anything we had it backward. It's just the power source, a... a hardware upgrade, the Citadel was _always…_ shit…”

“ _Commander?”_

She stared down at the console, reluctantly coming to grip with what the readout was telling her. She would have no more than a few minutes, once the weapon was primed, before the entire system was overloaded on a massive and critical scale. So be it. “All this time… we've been living on the greatest weapon we ever had…” She hesitated, and it seemed as if neither she nor Hackett was sure what to say for a moment. Then with as much resolve as she could muster, Constance spoke again. “Admiral, if you could do one more thing for me…”

_“Of course, Shepard, anything.”_

Her hand hovered over the final key--the final push to salvation, and the final nail in her coffin. “If you can- if there's any way you can contact the Normandy after this, just tell them all… it was an honor, from day one, that they all went above and beyond...” She wrinkled her nose, a haggard breath of laughter escaping her. “That all sounds so cliché, doesn't it? Just tell them…” She tapped the key, felt the entirety of the Citadel shudder and groan beneath her as every last bit of power was pulled from every corner of its mass. There were no flashing warnings, no alarm sirens. Whoever had patched this process into the Citadel’s system must have surely known that when the time came for it, it would come with no confusion, no lingering uncertainty. Constance gripped the sides of the console desperately, determined to face the end on her feet, even as every fiber of her strained with the effort.

“Tell them I'm proud of them. Shepard out.”


End file.
